WGBH News – Boston chlamydia rates rise while sex education lags behindAt a middle school in Boston, eighth graders are learning about sexual curiosity. A teacher asks them about where they learned about sex. The students’ answers: school, home, their partners, at health clinics, TV. These 14-year-olds are part of a sexual health education pilot study at a dozen middle schools in Boston. They’re learning about everything from puberty to Sexually Transmitted Infections.

Wall Street Journal – NY judge: Fed plan for morning-after pill sales OKPresident Barack Obama’s administration can go forward with its new plan to make the morning-after pill available to buyers of any age without prescriptions, but it needs to do it promptly or face potential sanctions in the long-running dispute over access to the emergency contraceptives, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

CNN – Antiviral drugs help prevent HIV infection in IV drug usersTreating intravenous drug users with antiviral drugs may reduce their chances of HIV infection, according to a new study published Wednesday in the British medical journal The Lancet.The Bangkok Tenofovir Study was done in Bangkok, Thailand, from 2005-2013. It was run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in collaboration with the Thailand Ministry of Public Health.

The Atlantic – A racial history of drowning“Children should be taught never to roughhouse in water and never to hold another child underwater.” So recommends author Jane Brody at The New York Times yesterday, on the importance of teaching kids to swim. Amid that sort of advice, she makes a right turn into the shadows: drowning is the number-two cause of death in children — and racial disparities in the statistics are important to consider in improving safety. She writes:According to the USA Swimming Foundation, about 70 percent of African-American children, 60 percent of Latino children and 40 percent of white children are non-swimmers. Lack of access and financial constraints account only partly for these numbers. Fear, cultural factors and even cosmetic issues play a role as well.

Modern Healthcare* – Benjamin to step down as U.S. surgeon generalU.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin will step down from her position in July, a spokeswoman for HHS confirmed late Wednesday…
In a statement Wednesday, Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the APHA, said Dr. Regina Benjamin taught the country “how to walk again,” as she oversaw the “Every Body Walk” campaign that urged Americans to walk for 30 minutes a day, five days per week, to promote health and prevent disease. The APHA’s Benjamin also said Dr. Regina Benjamin continued the tradition of previous surgeons general in advocating for reduced tobacco use, referring to two reports that were released during her tenure, including one about how tobacco smoke causes disease and another about preventing tobacco use among the nation’s youth.
“She forged the way as leader of the National Prevention Council, created under the Affordable Care Act, to help transform our nation’s health system from one that focuses on treating disease to one that focuses on prevention and staying well,” Dr. Georges Benjamin said in his statement.
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Read more about U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin on Public Health Newswire.